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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23282563">life after death</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magali_Dragon/pseuds/Magali_Dragon'>Magali_Dragon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>one shots and other drabbles [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Character Study, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, F/M, POV Daenerys Targaryen, Queen Daenerys Targaryen, Tearjerker, go read some fluff immediately after this seriously, probably shouldn't have written this but I did, very sad you have been warned</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:02:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,814</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23282563</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magali_Dragon/pseuds/Magali_Dragon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A king dies and a queen reigns, or the Long Night has a different ending, and Daenerys rules, but suffers a major loss.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>one shots and other drabbles [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567705</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>335</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>life after death</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I was on a conference call for telework while holed up in my house and was feeling down and this plot bunny wouldn't leave me, so I wrote it.  It's sad, with a bittersweet ending, and probably NOT what we need in these dark times, but I'll find some fluff to write at some point.  </p><p>This also is an ending I really would not have minded on the show, but they took the shit way out.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was Arya who found him, when the unyielding fog eventually dissipated, the thick gray smoke fading to thin acrid puffs from the smoldering remains of bodies and the trenches, and the snow no more than occasional flurries melting once they touched the frozen ground. It was hours after the last wight fell, the Walkers exploding into shards of icy glass, and a howl of the tides changing as their leader met his final end.</p><p> </p><p>She had been on the ground, swinging a dragonglass sword wildly, her arms and shoulders cramping, her legs quaking beneath her from trying to stand. There was a gash along the side of her head, the blood no longer pumping as it had, for it had clotted in her hair, staining the silver a deep crimson. <em>Targaryen colors</em>, she had laughed, almost maniacal, covered in red blood and black ash. <em>Fire and blood.</em></p><p> </p><p>They fell around her, dropping to the ground, no longer provided what amounted to their <em>life</em> without their king. She had collapsed, exhausted, terrified as she clutched the rounded swell of her belly, hardly visible beneath her coats. The fall from Drogon had been hard, her leg numb from the fall, possibly even broken, but she could only force herself back to her feet, crying out for her people, stumbling over Qhono’s body, crying over her Unsullied, and falling into Jorah, who was critically injured, but somehow still alive as she sobbed in his arms.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s over <em>khaleesi</em>,” he murmured, weak, hardly able to move his lips. He fell to the ground, unable to stand, and she cried over him, begging him not to leave her. His armor had done what it could, but she saw the cut in his neck, the claw marks along his sides. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He sighed, eyes flickering. “It’s over.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, no don’t,” she cried, reaching for his hand, pressing it to her side. “I need you to keep protecting me. Protecting <em>us</em>. My baby needs you too, my sweet bear.”</p><p> </p><p>Drogon came to her, collapsing around her, shielding her as best as he could, providing her warmth, her shoulders beginning to shake as she held Jorah, whose breathing was rattling his chest, but it was still breath. She buried her face into her dragon’s wing, waiting until someone came to help them. Until people began to realize that it was the end, that everything was over, and they were well and truly free.</p><p> </p><p>Grey Worm came over, covered in soot and grime and blood, and maybe other things she did not want to think about. He took Jorah, along with some other surviving Unsullied, and promised her he would take care of him, he would make sure, but she needed to get to the Maester, to see to her injuries. She nodded, barely, but promised him that Jorah got the Maester’s attention first, he was hurt far more than her. She helped people as she could; her leg would keep and her cut on her head would be fine. She had to help her people; they needed their Queen.</p><p> </p><p>It did not matter; Northman, Unsullied, Dothraki, Valeman…she tried to do what she could. She spun in circles, dizzy with hunger, exhaustion, and blood loss. At some point she got to the front gate of Winterfell, leaning on the stone wall, her hand over her belly, closing her eyes, willing to feel the gentle kick she had first felt only days before. She could not bear if she lost another child.</p><p> </p><p>If she lost <em>their</em> child.</p><p> </p><p>Eyes fluttering, she moved from the wall, to go inside, to find Missandei and Tyrion and even Lady Sansa, when she heard the sound.</p><p> </p><p>A scream, breaking through the eerie din of survivors moving around, many still in shock, trying to find loved ones and friends and brothers. She thought the scream sounded like a woman at the time, and she lurched ahead, wading through the dead and out of the corner of her eye she saw her beautiful boy, her sweet Viserion, a shell of himself, spread out like a broken bird in the Winterfell yard. She could not go to him, because something drew her towards the godswood, to the sound of a young woman screaming, growing stronger and clearer as she approached.</p><p> </p><p>And at the entrance to the godswood, she saw the tiny body of Arya Stark leaning over someone. A man’s body, legs kicked out awkwardly, a hand limp at his side, wearing the dark browns and blacks of the Northerners. “No, no, no,” Arya repeated, crying.</p><p> </p><p>The snow crunched under her feet; she could see the sword beside the body. Gleaming Valyrian steel, not a speck of dirt or blood on the magical blade. Valyrian steel was special because it was the blood of dragons, she thought, remembering the obscure bit of information from Viserys. It was a long-kept secret, only the Targaryens knew. She had told him, one of those nights on the boat when they shared a single pillow and traded stories and giggles between them.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I want to go back to the boat.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She did not want to approach; she knew what she would find and if she stayed where she was, she did not have to know. If she stayed where she was, she would still be Daenerys Targaryen, the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, who was in love with a man that called himself a bastard but was really not. Who was really the King to her Queen, and who loved her as desperately as she loved him, and who she had not gotten into an argument with before the horns sounded, who she planned to find after this battle and tell him that she loved him more than she loved life, and whatever approached now, they could defeat together. That in that cabin on the ship, in the throes of their lovemaking, they had broken curses and beaten monsters, and created a life that was half him and half her.</p><p> </p><p>The realm’s hope, she had thought. A child who would usher in a new world of the realm, a piece of the south and the north, of the First Men and Old Valyria. A dragonrider and a warg both. A dragon and a wolf.</p><p> </p><p>Except that would not happen.</p><p> </p><p>Somehow her feet took her to the tiny woman sobbing over the body. She got to her side when they gave out, and she reached for him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>He looks like he’s sleeping.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>In sleep his forehead smoothed, free from worries and thoughts. He resembled a young man, his two and twenty years, not the hardened exhausted look he often carried, aging him too much. Weightless, he could dream, he could be free. She would often stare at him while he slept, dragging her finger over his nose and along his hairline, memorizing every piece of him so she could continue to see him when her eyes closed. So she could always dream of him.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever wound had felled him, she could not tell, but it did not matter, not when he lay in the snow, before the tree of his gods, with only them to watch over him now.</p><p> </p><p>Arya muttered beside her, saying she found him there, he must have been the one to do it, to finally kill the Night King. There were other bodies of the archers who had tried to protect Bran. “Go find your brother,” she mumbled, uncaring about Brandon Stark in that moment. Uncaring about anyone.</p><p> </p><p>Only the child in her womb, who finally kicked, making itself known.</p><p> </p><p>Their child lived.</p><p> </p><p>And he did not.</p><p> </p><p>She leaned over him, resting on his chest, her arm stretching out to grip his shoulder. They might have been in their bed, with him under her, and she listening to whatever story he told her, as he sat back against pillows and played with the ends of her hair. She ignored the wet snow and mud seeping into her trousers and marring her already ruined coat. She was cold, but it was not from the frigid winds that still blew through, it was because she had lost her warmth.</p><p> </p><p>Her heart was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Eyes closed, face pale, and skin smooth, she stroked at his beard, her other hand on his chest, over his dead heart. “You came back from death,” she whispered, her face only inches above his, lips cracking. Tears welling in her eyes, she spoke to him, just the two of them. They were back in the cabin, in bed, beneath mountains of furs, all warm and sated. Just the dim candles burning in lanterns to provide them with light, fiddling their fingers against them to make shapes from the shadows on the wall and laughing at whatever they could come up with.</p><p> </p><p>“You came back from death, you finished what you were meant to do,” she said. He’d told her, before the battle. <em>If I die, you do not bring me back again.</em> She had made him promise the same. They tabled their argument, over his lineage, which he’d only shared with her in the crypts before the horns blasted. He had told her that he didn’t understand why he came back, why whatever god the Red Woman believed in had thought he should return. Why Davos even asked her in the first place and did not just let him die. She dragged her thumb over his bottom lip, which he used to chew when he was nervous. “You did what you needed to do for your people. You died a hero. You saved us all.”</p><p> </p><p>Her hand reached for his cold one, pressing it over her belly. Tears fell fast and hard, her voice choking. “You died for your child. You saved your child. Your blood will continue. There will be another with your name. You are a king, you are a father, and you are…” She sobbed. “My husband.”</p><p> </p><p><em>Everything happens under the stars with the Old Gods</em>, he had said.</p><p> </p><p>It was still early morning, the sun had not yet risen, and the stars still remained. She knew there needed to be witnesses, and Arya still stood, watching. She heard foosteps behind her, did not even turn to see who it was, whether it was one of her people or perhaps one of his. She did not know the words for the ceremony, but she clasped his hand anyway and with as strong a voice as she could, before the Winterfell heart-tree, she spoke: “I am yours and you are mine and I take you as my husband. I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen and I choose you. I love you. For now and always.”</p><p> </p><p>And she pressed her mouth to his, kissing him one last time, sealing the promise.</p><p> </p><p>After that they took him away from her. She didn’t know where they brought him, she didn’t even know where the brought her. Someone helped her out of her ruined garments, maybe it was Missandei, but she was in a strange state of sleep and awake. The water in the bath was nowhere near as hot as she would prefer, downright freezing, but she bathed in it regardless. She crawled into bed, into what should have been <em>their</em> bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling.</p><p> </p><p>Missandei came to her—maybe minutes later or maybe hours, could even have been days—bearing hot broth and encouraged her to eat. “Only if you do as well,” she told her, waiting for her best friend and closest adviser to drink her broth first. They ate quietly, until she set the bowl down and stared at her hands. Tears fell again. “He’s really gone.”</p><p> </p><p>“They have taken him for burial.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>The Northern way.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“He must be burned. He was a Targaryen.” The Targaryens go to the flames, not to the ground.</p><p> </p><p>Missandei frowned, but only nodded. “Of course, Your Grace.” She hesitated and took a breath. “Lord Tyrion would like to see you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Tell him no, not now.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course.” Missandei reached her hand over and covered the swell of her stomach beneath the furs, whispering. “This is a blessing, Your Grace. You must take care.”</p><p> </p><p>She nodded. “I will.” She had to live for her child. For her people.</p><p> </p><p>She had to live so he could live on too.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Mother of Dragons.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>After they built the pyres, cleared the dead, gathered them for burial, did she dress. In all black, in a high-necked coat, with black gloves, and her hair pulled into a braid reminiscent of the one she had worn when she sent Drogo to the flames. She went down to the pyres, beyond the main gate, and stood before everyone. So small, she thought, at the tiny remains of her Dothraki, her Unsullied, and the forces the North provided. She came here with all her might, to save the North, to fight <em>his</em> war before she fought hers.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it was a mistake. She should have gone first to King’s Landing. Burned it to the ground the way she wanted. <em>Be a dragon</em>, Olenna Tyrell told her. Advice she should have taken.</p><p> </p><p>Now she has lost almost everything.</p><p> </p><p>“Ser Jorah?” she demanded, feeling the creeping gaze of her Hand beside her.</p><p> </p><p>“Recovering. The Maester says he is lucky.” Tyrion paused. “Your Grace, I believe you should be inside, perhaps resting…”</p><p> </p><p>“I need to be here for my people.” She walked ahead, beyond Lady Sansa and Lady Arya and Brandon, whatever he was calling himself, and by all the ones who thought she did not matter. They stared at her, walking between the pyres, looking upon the faces of the dead. <em>I shall look upon their faces</em>, she told Jorah and Barristan, as they marched the road to Meereen, one crucified slave for every mile.</p><p> </p><p>She paused at the body of Theon Greyjoy, watched over by Sansa, who was sobbing, no longer the cold icy woman who had greeted her in the yard and glared upon her from the end of the table. She looked at his face and whispered: “Your sister would be proud of you.” She would be sure someone wrote to Lady Yara immediately, to notify her of her brother’s death.</p><p> </p><p>The face of Qhono, her Dothraki commander, and Black Beetle, Blue Mouse, and Red Wasp some of her Unsullied. She stared at the pale face of little Lyanna Mormont, wishing her cousin were there to say goodbye. “You were fierce and strong, little Bear, the true embodiment of House Mormont. Thank you,” she said, brushing her gloved hand over the young girl’s dark hair.</p><p> </p><p>Once she had seen them all, she came to stand in the center, the survivors watching her, some with continued disdain in their faces. She called out, as strong as she could, her voice echoing in the cold. “You fought until the last man and woman standing!” she cried out. She forced herself to continue, when all she wanted to do was go to the single man in the center pyre and die beside him. “You fought for your home, for the North, for the Seven Kingdoms, for all humanity! You fought against slavery to death, against an oppressor who would see you in his service and chains. Your King died for you. He bent the knee for you, to save you, and he goes to the gods now as a King, a hero, and your savior!”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Breaker of Chains.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>With another deep breath, she called out. “Jon Snow was the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, the King in the North, and the Hero of the Dawn!” She took another breath, tears blurring her vision. <em>Keep going.</em> “And he was also my king and my husband!”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>He was a legitimate child, born to a couple who loved each other and who wanted him. He was a Targaryen and a dragon and the heir to the Iron Throne.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>They all gazed around at each other at the news, but she didn’t care. She wanted them to know. They might hate her, they might believe it was her fault their king was dead, but she didn’t care, because they deserved to know that Jon Snow might have been a king to some, a god to others, but he was her love and her king. She would not have his memory sullied by rumors that he gave up his throne and his crown for a silver cunt from Essos, wooed by his manhood instead of his mind and heart and desire to protect and love his people.</p><p> </p><p>She approached, staring at him, laid on the pyre, in black leather and holding Longclaw in his hands. His hair had been brushed back, still pulled from his face. Blood and mud cleaned from him. “Goodbye,” she whispered, lowering her face over his forehead, kissing him. “<em>Geros ilas, ānogar hen issa ānogar, prūmia hen issa prūmia, issa dārys syt sir se va moriot.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Goodbye, blood of my blood, heart of my heart, my king for now and always.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Her hand smoothed over his face once more, brushing back his hair again, taking one final look at his sleeping face. That was all he was doing, she told herself. He was sleeping. For the rest of time. With his mother, father, and Eddard Stark, in the lands of his gods, forever.</p><p> </p><p>She turned and accepted the torch from Grey Worm. Others approached the pyres, setting them alight, and she waited, staring at his face, wishing to see his gray eyes once more. To see his smile, that flash of white teeth against his dark beard, but all she had left were her memories of the short time they spent together. She closed her eyes and lowered the torch, lighting the kindling around him, and slipped the torch beneath.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone stayed back from the fires, watching the ones who died for them disappear, but she only stared at the man she had loved. The fire took him, licking angrily at the dried wood and hay his body rested upon. A massive white shape came up beside her, Ghost resting against her, watching his master disappear into the basic elements of the world. “He is a dragon,” she murmured, her fingers lightly touching the wolf’s head.</p><p> </p><p>Some people exclaimed in fright, seeing the great black body of Drogon fly over, a mournful cry sobbing from him, haunting and strange to hear such a sad sound from such a massive, terrifying beast . Rhaegal had been injured terribly and could not fly, but she could hear him as well, missing his rider. She wondered if the dragons felt pain like humans did when they lost the ones closest to them, and who could be closest to a dragon than its rider?</p><p> </p><p>Tormund came to stand on her other side. “I thought he was gone the first time, bleeding out in the snow like that,” he murmured, his wide blue eyes focused on the body in the flames. “But then he came back. He’s not coming back again now, is he?”</p><p> </p><p>She shook her head. “No.”</p><p> </p><p>“He was a right stupid bastard.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, but he wasn’t a bastard,” she whispered. She continued to stare at him, drawn to the flames as she had once before, and she ignored the screams of some people, the shouts of others, including Grey Worm and Missandei and Tyrion. The only one who had seen her do this was Jorah and he was in the castle, unconscious. She climbed atop the pyre and closed her eyes, stretching beside him, and wrapped her hand over his, folded over his sword. The sword would survive the burning.</p><p> </p><p>And she would give it to their child.</p><p> </p><p>The kicks within her belly strengthened, drawing from the heat. They were the blood of the dragon, they were the Unburnt, and she wanted to be with him in his last moments. When it was over, she would gather his ashes and she would inter them in the crypts of Winterfell herself, with his mother and the man he considered his father flanking him.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t be sure how long it took. Her eyes remained closed, ignoring the screams, the smells, and any other feeling than the gentle tickle of the flames on her skin and the way her clothing melted off from the heat. Once it was over, she opened her eyes and sat up, curled in on herself, at the faces of the Northerners, of Tormund, and Missandei, and everyone. And she got to her feet, naked as the day she was born, and held Longclaw to her belly, protruding forth with her child, now visible to all.</p><p> </p><p>They knelt; all of them. Even Sansa Stark, her mouth open and shocked, and Arya Stark, both of whom had been unkind and distrustful of her since she arrived at the castle. They all fell around her. Her people, kneeling to her, the Dothraki and the Unsullied knowing what she was, but the rest staring at her for the first time. Not a foreign whore who bewitched their King and wanted to enslave them, but a warrior, a dragon, who lost and bled for them.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe even a god, like some believed he to be.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>The Unburnt.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Weeks passed after the mass funerals, after she gathered her beloved’s ashes and placed them in a dragonglass urn, fashioned by the blacksmith Gendry Baratheon—she legitimized him after the funerals—carved with wolves around the sides. She asked him to place a dragon on the lid, which he did, not questioning why.</p><p> </p><p>There would be a statue, to go where she placed the urn, in the open crypt between Lyanna Stark and Ned Stark. “Come Ghost,” she said to the wolf, who had not left her side since his companion fell in battle. They left the crypts, ascending to the surface, and to the sunlight that had only just started shining for longer than moments at a time. <em>Winter is here</em>, she knew, the Stark’s motto finally coming true.</p><p> </p><p>And fire and blood would be coming true to King’s Landing.</p><p> </p><p>They tried to talk her out of it, but she refused. She summarily dismissed the Northerners and the Valemen, because she did not trust them, even if they had bent the knee to her. They might now see her as their Queen, she might have staunched any demands of Northern independence—even from Sansa—but she did not want them to prevent her from taking what was rightfully hers. She was a dragon and she would be a dragon.</p><p> </p><p>She flew Drogon south, what remained of her Unsullied and her Dothraki in ships heading to Dragonstone, where they would wait in the event, she needed them. In black leather, with a red sash, her hair done in an incredibly complicated fashion—as she had requested from Missandei—she flew south. She didn’t care about what Tyrion said of bells ringing in surrender or the locals who Cersei was bringing into the keep’s walls as hostages. She knew what she was going to do.</p><p> </p><p>Drogon had to stop once on the journey, to rest and recover, in the Riverlands. The Tully forces were almost nonexistent; she made a note that she might have to change the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands when she took the Throne. There would certainly need to be a change of the Warden of the West, as the Lannisters would never be in any position of power again. </p><p> </p><p>Her hand over her belly, she spoke to her child, leaning against Drogon for warmth in the night. “We will rule over all the kingdoms,” she murmured, thinking of the dreams she had had in Essos, of what she wanted for her kingdom. “And the men will grow fat and the ladies will dance when we walk by. I want my kingdom to be beautiful.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>It will be beautiful.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Atop Drogon again, she flew, and the gates came into focus, the Golden Company waiting. They had scorpions lined up, but that mattered not for a dragon; Drogon’s scales were as hard as iron, they grew stronger with each battle. It was impossible to shoot a dragon from the sky; Meraxes only fell to a shot to the eye, unbelievable and the only time it had happened. She dodged them, moving quickly, zigzagging in the sky, Drogon’s flame extinguishing any further attempts. She destroyed what amounted to the Golden Company, only slightly ashamed because they were Targaryen sympathizers.</p><p> </p><p><em>Blackfyre sympathizers</em>, she remembered. <em>Not true Targaryens.</em></p><p> </p><p>They burned Euron’s fleet, sending the ships into the Blackwater. Drogon swept over the ruined ships, firing off any that appeared to still float. She returned to the gates, destroying them, finally landing atop one of the ramparts, staring at the Red Keep. The asymmetrical towers that Maegor built, spiraling around on the hill. Three hills, she thought to herself. Aegon’s Hill, Visenya’s Hill, and Rhaenys’s Hill. Three Targaryens who conquered the kingdoms, who established her family’s dynasty, and turned a warring continent into a peaceful kingdom.</p><p> </p><p>As peaceful as it could be, with occasional riots and rebellions, among the people and among the Targaryens. It will not be like that any longer, she thought, her hand going to her belly. “We will make this place what Aegon created. What the Usurper destroyed,” she said. She saw his face in hers, his smile and his wry laugh. His scowl, his ignorance of her position, his rudeness, and directness. His silly heavy furs and thick armor and ugly brown coats.</p><p> </p><p>Ash streaked her face, tears tracking paths in it down her cheeks. She did not need to speak to Drogon, he knew what she wanted, and rose from the ramparts, flying straight for the Keep.</p><p> </p><p>If the Targaryens could not have it, no one could have it, she vowed. She would rather see what Aegon built turn to rubble in the Blackwater Bay than to have a Lannsiter or anyone else claim it for theirs. So she started at the bottom, where she imaged the Iron Throne sat, and she spiraled up, engulfing Maegor’s Holdfast in dragonfire. It melted the red brick and stone, sending pieces of the keep tumbling into the sea, crashing into the ground.</p><p> </p><p>She took care to only destroy the castle itself, moving to land atop a nearby structure, staring at the ruins as they fell. It began to snow; the cold flakes extinguishing most of the fire. She couldn’t be sure how long she watched, all the flames going out and smoky ash falling with the snow, blanketing the charred red brick in gray.</p><p> </p><p>“I did it,” she whispered, her hand still on her belly, smiling. “I did it for you.”</p><p> </p><p>And she climbed off Drogon at the top of the staircase to the holdfast, turning and walking into the throne room, where the great iron monstrosity sat, flanked by the cloudy skies, twisted iron stags and lions and seven-pointed stars from the braziers and window features forming an eerie fence around the once glorious throne room. She walked slowly through the ash and snow, her red sash dragging like a bridal cloak on the ground, until she came to a stop at the steps leading to the throne Aegon built.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re on my throne.”</p><p> </p><p>The occupant of the throne looked up. He had once sat there before, she thought, holding the blood sword over his knee, the sword he had rammed through her father’s back, the king he had been sworn to protect at his feet. She cocked her head, glancing at the crumpled body of the queen he had sworn to protect in probably the same location and position as her father had once been. Jaime Lannister stood from the Iron Throne and knelt before her. “Apologies Your Grace,” he said. He reached his golden hand up and to her curious horror, removed his face, to reveal Arya Stark.</p><p> </p><p>Arya peered up, gray eyes just like her brother—cousin—dancing coldly. “Your Grace, Cersei Lannister is dead. The city is yours.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The handover of power went far easier than she imagined it could have; the people were desperate for a ruler who cared for them, who wanted them to prosper, and allowed them those opportunities. They might have feared her, on her black dragon, burning the keep to the ground, but she ensured that they were fed, bathed, clothed, and protected. Cersei Lannister was dead, a Targaryen had returned to the throne, and you are safe once more, the message went out.</p><p> </p><p>She had to burn Varys, she had been disappointed to discover, when she returned to Dragonstone. It turned out he was sending messages through the kingdoms, trying to curry support to overthrow her, claiming her mad. He thought her grief over the loss of the King in the North, a man she was calling <em>husband</em>, had turned her mad like her father. She was not listening to council, she was making decisions on her own, and perhaps there was another they could put in her place. They could find another ruler, maybe someone from another family, not a Targaryen.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s because I don’t have a cock,” she’d said to him, sitting in the Chamber of the Painted Table, and he had basically said as much. He said he served the people and she was not the right ruler. She smiled. “I told you I would burn you alive if you ever betrayed me. So this should not come as a surprise.”</p><p> </p><p>Tyrion had been a disappointment too and she’d had to relive him of his services as her Hand. “You let your brother free, it is only because Arya Stark found him and killed him that he did not allow your sister to escape without trial,” she said.</p><p> </p><p>"What does it matter?  She's dead, they both are," he had said mournfully, more concerned for his deceased siblings than for the realm.</p><p> </p><p>He could not be trusted and she wondered why she ever had, for he also believed her mad. So she dismissed him, allowed him to keep his head, and she would keep her eye on him. “The first sign of treason and you are dead. I will take Longclaw myself and remove your head,” she warned.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought fire was more your preferred execution method,” Tyrion spat out.</p><p> </p><p>She shrugged. “I will give you a choice.”</p><p> </p><p>The Iron Throne burned, after she had made her adjustments to her council. She did not want to sit above her people. It was time to change, to break the wheel, and that included the destruction of Aegon’s throne. So many people had died for it and they would no longer. She sat in it once, with Drogon and Rhaegal watching her from the sides, her hand over her belly. Once she had finished, taken her moment, thinking of all the Targaryens who came before her, she stood and ordered them to destroy it, which they did gladly.</p><p> </p><p>Months passed. She grew large with child, one of her Dothraki maids informing her about a moon before the birth that she might have two babies. “Two?” she had marveled. She had been scared she would not have any and instead she might have two. She cried that night, holding her belly and imagining him behind her, holding her to his hard chest, his hands traveling along the stretched skin of her abdomen.</p><p> </p><p>On a hard winter’s night she felt the pains begin, her waters breaking as she lay in bed, with Ghost beside her, keeping her company. He did not leave her side during the birth, as she labored for well over two nights, a major snowstorm consuming Dragonstone and the entire Stormlands around it. Dragons screamed in pain with her, crashing upon the sides of the castle and calling to her in the night. She had never felt such pain in her life, but it was not as hard as the feeling of her heart ripped from her chest at the sight of her love, dead on the ground. As the snows and winds hammered the ancient keep, her cries soon faded, the sobs of a newborn filling the void. First came her daughter, a wee little thing, with dark hair slicked to her head, arms and legs flailing in fury at her rude—and cold—entry to the world. She barely had time to kiss her child’s head, staring at her pink skin, counting ten fingers and ten toes, before she lurched forward with the next pain, struggling with her son.</p><p> </p><p>He came out much quieter than his sister, much larger and taking his time, and his eyes were open, looking around and taking in his surroundings. His hair was not as dark and when she stared into his face, she could see the gray beginning to cloud out baby blue around his pupils.</p><p> </p><p>That night as they left her, cleaned up and tired, her children at her breast, with Samwell Tarly acting as Dragonstone’s Maester and sending ravens to the realm to let them know that the Queen had given birth to a son and a daughter, she lay beside them, curled tight against her warmth, in furs and clean linens, both clutching at her hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Snowborn,” she whispered, remembering her birth in this same castle, during the worst storm in a century. “You are both the Snowborn.”</p><p> </p><p>“They’re beautiful. They look like you.” He lay behind her, head propped on his hand. She smiled, nodding, and stroked her son’s soft cheek. His raspy Northern burr tickled her ear when he spoke, and his arm stretched around her to touch at their daughter’s tiny foot, peeking from between the furs. “You are amazing, doing this, being queen.”</p><p> </p><p>“I miss you.” Tears fell onto the furs around her. “I can’t do this without you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes you can, you already are,” he said.</p><p> </p><p>She hiccupped. “I need you Jon.”</p><p> </p><p>He kissed behind her ear and turned her face to look at him. A wide hand dragged over her cheek and he smiled, gazing lovingly at her. “You have me. In here.” He touched his fist against her breast, straight to her heart. He lowered his lips to hers, gently kissing. With a faint “I love you, my queen”, he faded away, but she could still feel his warmth behind her, the solid weight of his body on the mattress.</p><p> </p><p>A few days later she took her children on Drogon, flying them around Dragonstone and skimming over the Narrow Sea, strapped to her chest in a tight sling, like Alyssa Targaryen with her children on Meleys. She swore they giggled, even when she slid off Drogon and Ghost raced over, shoving his nose into the bundles to check on them, not satisfied until they were back in their crib, sleeping peacefully.</p><p> </p><p>She worked steadily from Dragonstone, even in her rest period, until such time as she could return to King’s Landing for her official coronation. Missandei came and went, with the dress she would wear, and the heavy cape and even the crown, which Gendry Baratheon had made for her. She wanted the twins to be present as well, draped in red and black velvets, fit for the prince and princess of the realm.</p><p> </p><p>She named her daughter Rhaena. For her mother, for her brother, and for Lyanna Stark.</p><p> </p><p>Her son’s name was Jon.</p><p> </p><p>Named for his father, who died for his people, for his children, so they could survive in a world with light and life and sun. That’s what he was, her sweet little boy, with his cloud of dark hair and his steel gray eyes. He was quiet, thoughtful, and did not cry near as much as his sister. Rhaena blew dragonfire, but she was feisty as a wolf.</p><p> </p><p>A few years after her coronation, the realm was still at peace, and they called her Good Queen Daenerys, like her ancestor Alysanne. She flew Drogon to the north, her children strapped against her, laughing the entire way, with Rhaegal carefully watching from beside them, and Ghost gently held in Drogon’s claws—to the wolf’s most furious displeasure. He only stomached it because otherwise they would be out of his sight and he could not abide that.</p><p> </p><p>They landed in the North, outside of Winterfell, Ghost loping off immediately—to empty his stomach and bowels no doubt—greeted by Tormund, who dragged her off her feet into an enormous bear-hug, before he swept the children off their feet, carrying them into the keep.</p><p> </p><p>“Your Grace,” Sansa greeted her.</p><p> </p><p>“Lady Sansa,” she replied; her Wardeness of the North gave her trouble now and again, but at the sight of her niece and nephew, she calmed. She nodded towards the entrance to the crypts. “Excuse me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course, Your Grace.”</p><p> </p><p>They journeyed beneath together, her children each carrying a candle, neither one bothered by the heat or the wax that dropped to their little palms. Ghost came with, trailing behind to protect them and give them space. She led them to the corridor, where her beloved lay at rest, and stopped in front of his statue, his head bowed over his sword, hair swept from his face, the sculptor having known his likeness. “It does not loko quite like him,” she whispered to the children. “But he was a handsome man.”</p><p> </p><p>“Like Tormund?” Rhaena asked.</p><p> </p><p>She chuckled. “Not quite like Tormund, he was kind. His eyes were kind.” <em>They were sad.</em> She covered her son’s head, the dark curls like his father’s. Both of them like their father. “You both resemble him a great deal. You have his eyes, Jon. As well as his name.”</p><p> </p><p>“He was a Snow, they say that,” her little Jon whispered.</p><p> </p><p>She shook her head, murmuring. “No, no he was a Targaryen. A dragon like us. He was also a wolf.”</p><p> </p><p>“Like us?” Rhaena asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes sweetling, like you too.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can hear Ghost in my head sometimes, when I go to sleep.”</p><p> </p><p>“So could he,” she said. Her hands fell to her sides, watching them carefully place their candles at the base of his statue, their little knees falling to the ground as they folded her hands and bowed their heads, praying like she taught them. They would go to the hearttree next, to their father’s gods, and they would pray there as well, but this was just to their father. Whatever they wanted to say to them.</p><p> </p><p>When they finished, she released them, under Ghost’s care and watchful eye, waiting for them to ascend before she turned to her love, reaching to touch her hand to his stone one, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. “I miss you every moment of every day,” she said. She smiled warmly. “I’ll see you in my dreams.”</p><p> </p><p>They were always stronger at Winterfell, where he died, where she found out she was having the twins. Where he was, in body and spirit. Maybe it was because of the Old Gods, she didn’t know, she just knew when she closed her eyes and fell into dreams, he was there, like he was truly next to her, walking and talking and laughing. His kisses were warm on her lips, his breath heated on her skin, and she sometimes never wanted to wake, only doing so because she had her children to live for now.</p><p> </p><p>She went up to the surface, finding them, laughing and playing with them in the snow; they threw snowballs at each other and fell into the powder, kicking and spinning and making shapes. Ghost danced with them, shoving his nose in and kicking it up, sending a spray of flakes over their flushed faces. She ignored her duties, knowing she had to work, for she was the Queen, but she was also a mother. She was their mother, and this was their home, their father’s home, and if they were as close to him here as she was, she would stay with them forever.</p><p> </p><p>“Mother,” he said to her, that night, as she lay in bed, the children on either side of her, while she read through parchments she had put off, things that Sansa wanted to speak with her about the following day. He crawled onto the bed next to their son, his hand going to his namesake’s head. He smiled, beaming at her. “You’re a mother. It’s what you always wanted. Mother to the people, to your dragons, and to these little monsters.”</p><p> </p><p>She smiled, reaching over and squeezing his hand. “I never expected it to happen. You helped it become so.”</p><p> </p><p>He shook his head and kissed her. “No,” he whispered. “You did this on your own.”</p><p> </p><p>As she fell asleep, she heard her children sigh beside her and she smiled, closing her eyes, and felt him with them too.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Mother.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>fin.</b>
  </p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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